


Wanderers in the Darkness

by falafelfiction



Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25389292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falafelfiction/pseuds/falafelfiction
Summary: The day Michael Kahnwald died, seen through the eyes of multiple Winden residents. This fic is intended to read like a sequel to the Season 2 episode 'An Endless Cycle'. Warnings for canonical suicide, grief and trauma.
Relationships: Hannah Kahnwald/Michael Kahnwald | Mikkel Nielsen, Hannah Kahnwald/Ulrich Nielsen, Jonas Kahnwald & Michael Kahnwald | Mikkel Nielsen, Jonas Kahnwald/Martha Nielsen
Comments: 106
Kudos: 114





	1. Michael

**Author's Note:**

> Is there any sort of readership for Dark fic? I don't really know. But the show has left me craving more from these characters and this is where my muse has led me. Beginning with this delve into Michael's final moments.

_21\. June 2019, 6.17am_

When Michael sits to write the letter, he can’t remember what he’s supposed to say.

He can’t picture the exact words that he saw scrawled on those ragged bits of paper. He guesses he doesn’t have to. Whatever he writes now is what it’s meant to be. It’s a comfort to know he can’t get it wrong. He just tries to tell the truth. He owes Jonas that much.

It was Hannah who had wanted to give their son that name. She said she had always thought it was a beautiful name for a boy. She hadn’t understood why Michael had burst into tears when he heard her say it for the first time. He hadn’t been able to explain. He had just forced a smile and said that Jonas would be perfect. He had never told her the truth. He’d never confessed to his wife that the name Jonas belonged to a boy in a yellow raincoat who had dragged Michael into a nightmare that he had never woken up from.

He’d spent years wondering how he should feel about what Jonas did. It was hard to remember the Jonas Kahnwald he had known in his old life, his buried life, his Mikkel life. Hard to imagine a time when Jonas had been older than him. He remembers that he’d liked Jonas the best of all Magnus and Martha’s friends. Jonas hadn’t thought it was funny to clump him around the head. Jonas had smiled and played along when he wanted to show off a new magic trick. Jonas was the big brother he would’ve chosen if he was allowed to swap siblings. The one who he thought would protect him when they spent that night in the caves, hiding from the evil thing Jonas said was prowling in the woods.

For so many years, Michael has forced himself to forget that night. But it’s all coming back to him now. How he’d clung to Jonas’s hand, letting him pull him back through the trees to the cave mouth. How Jonas had insisted that they take shelter inside when the rain started to pour, even though the cave was where those roaring noises had come from. But Michael (no, Mikkel) had trusted Jonas. The older boy said he had been lost in these tunnels before and he knew where to go. He'd followed as Jonas thrust out his torch and led the way...

...all the way to the door and through its passage. They had crawled and crawled, the hard stone floor grazing his knees through his skeleton costume, until the tunnel finally opened out into a wider cavern and Jonas said it was safe for them to stop. He had placed his upended torch on the ground between them and they’d both sat cross-legged and facing each other over its light. 

“We have to say here all night,” Jonas had said, his voice weirdly hollow. “But when morning comes, everything will be right.”

Mikkel had nodded, not really understanding, but trusting Jonas knew what was best.

“That thing. The evil thing in the woods…do you think that’s what took Erik?”

Jonas held his stare, slowly nodding. “Yes, I think it was.”

He had sounded so certain and Mikkel couldn’t keep from trembling.

“Is it a monster?” he’d asked, lowering his voice to a whisper.

It had been Jonas’s turn to shudder then. His hand had jerked up to his neck, tugging at the zipper of his raincoat, even though it was already zipped all the way up to his chin.

“Yes,” he’d said quietly. “I think maybe it is.” 

Jonas’s eyes became a little hazy when he said this, like he was staring inwards rather than over the flashlight. Mikkel supposed that Jonas must have been scared too. He wasn’t that much older after all. And suddenly Mikkel felt like it was stupid for them both to be frightened over monsters. Monsters like werewolves and zombies didn’t really exist. He felt sure there would be a scientific explanation for the noises and the flashing lights. Like Jonas said, it would all become clear in the morning. But he still couldn’t stop himself shaking.

“Maybe it’s all just some kid playing a trick?” Mikkel suggested.

Jonas had swallowed and said nothing to this. He was still looking all stone-faced and serious. The tension in the air around them wasn’t helping with Mikkel’s nerves. He decided he should do something to lighten it.

“BOO!” he yelled out suddenly, his voice echoing off the cave walls.

Jonas had jumped out of his skin and Mikkel burst out giggling at the startled look on his face. Jonas pressed his hand to his chest, laughing weakly as he struggled to catch his breath.

“Got you,” Mikkel had bragged. “I got you good.”

He hadn’t been feeling any less scared, but Jonas being here gave him someone to focus on, someone who he trusted and who made him feel like it would all be alright in the end. Mikkel reached his arm across the space between them.

“Ultimate fist bump?” he’d offered with a smile.

Jonas met his eyes, wincing a little, but he didn’t leave him hanging. He reached out to return the bump. And just as Mikkel was about to pull back, Jonas caught him by the wrist. He opened out Mikkel’s fingers and then clasped his hand tight.

“I…I have to tell you something,” Jonas had said, suddenly looking like he wanted to cry. “I need you to know...I’m sorry. I should’ve taken you home to your parents. I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

Mikkel had just shrugged, squeezing his hand back.

“It’s okay. This is a really good hiding place. And anyway, I’d rather hang out with you than those other guys.” 

With these words, Jonas’s face had finally softened.

“I’d rather hang out with you too,” he’d said.

Yes, he remembered all of it now. That whole night they’d spent in the caves. How the two of them had stayed up talking for hours. How Mikkel had gone from feeling scared to feeling happy that someone was paying him so much attention. Jonas had asked if he could show him any magic. So Mikkel had done his coin tricks using this little silver necklace that Jonas had on a string. It was easy to use sleight of hand on Jonas. He was always staring at Mikkel’s face, missing the moment when he switched the pendant between his palms.

After giving the necklace back, Mikkel had started rambling about a documentary he had watched on folklore creatures and how most of them didn’t really exist. They were just myths made up to frighten people. Except for giant squids, of course. They were real. Scientists knew because they had found their remains, tentacles over sixty foot long, that could drag whole ships down to the bottom of the sea. But him and Jonas were nowhere near the ocean. So there was no need to be scared. And Jonas had just nodded along to everything that Mikkel said, barely talking himself, seeming happy just to listen. And there were so few people who would sit and listen to Mikkel for so long.

Eventually, he’d been struggling to keep his eyes open. His mouth kept stretching into yawns.

That was when Jonas had patted the ground beside them.

“Get some rest,” he’d said. “I’ll keep a watch.”

Mikkel had pulled his knees into his chest, reluctant to lay down. He trusted Jonas, but then again Jonas wasn’t all that big. So he guessed it was a good thing monsters didn’t really exist. Still, what if there was something else in these tunnels that got them before morning? Some kidnapper who would lock them in a basement, like what might've happened to Erik. What if they ended up trapped some place where they couldn’t get out? What if they just couldn't find the right passage back through the tunnels? 

“I…I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep,” he’d admitted, his voice wavering again.

Jonas had reached into his pocket then, taking out a plastic bottle.

“Here, take one of these,” he’d said, pressing a small white pill into Mikkel’s palm. “They are something the doctors gave me. They calm me down. Help me sleep when I feel scared.”

Mikkel had frowned at this. “What doctors?”

“The doctors at the Winden mental institution.” He’d sighed, then added. “I haven’t been in France. I was in the nuthouse. I couldn’t come back to school right away because I…I was losing it.”

“Because of what happened to your Papa?”

“Yes, because of that. I have a condition that the doctors call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I couldn’t stop feeling upset over what my father did. I couldn’t understand why he left me like that.”

He winced. “Did the doctors help you to understand?”

“No, not really. I had to figure it out for myself. I understand now.” 

“Oh. That’s good, I guess. You still miss him though?”

Jonas had nodded. “I miss him every day.” 

Mikkel hadn’t known what else to say. He didn’t want to ask too many questions about Jonas’s dead dad and make him upset. So he just reached out and took the pill, swallowing it dry and trusting it would help if Jonas said so. Then he’d curled up on his side, still clinging to Jonas’s hand. He’d closed his eyes, but his mouth was still talking.

“What if we get stuck here?” he’d murmured. “What if the storm floods the caves and we get trapped in here like those boys in Thailand last summer? What if we can’t find our way out?”

“I know a way out. It’s like that play Martha is in at school.”

Mikkel just snorted. “What about her stupid play?” 

“Ariadne. She leaves a thread to guide people lost in her labyrinth.” He blinked his eyes and saw Jonas staring up at the stone walls surrounding them. “I know all the threads of these caves. I know the way out. I’ll show it to you…when you wake up.”

Mikkel had nodded, sleep finally overwhelming his fears. He had trusted that no evil thing would get him in the night and Jonas would take him home in the morning. Instead he had woken up alone, with a yellow raincoat draped over him like a blanket to keep him warm. And Jonas was gone. Jonas had left him, and he didn’t understand why. And he hadn’t realized it was going to take him thirty-three more years to wake up.

Michael sits back in his chair, sweat breaking out on his brow, as the memory washes over him. Good and evil are a matter of perspective, he reminds himself. Whatever evil was done to him that night, he understands now that Jonas – his son – intended only good.

Yesterday evening, his child had come home to him from the future, long haired and limping, a boy who no longer knew where he belonged. A boy astray in time, just as Mikkel had been all those years ago. And it’s only now that Michael is realizing…if Jonas dragged him into a dark dream he can’t understand, a maze he can’t escape, then Michael has done the same to him.

It’s what he’s always been afraid of, a fear he buried deep and tried to block out. But the truth always finds its way back to the surface. He knows now he has drawn Jonas into his curse, made him part of this spreading cancer. Will his son ever forgive him for bringing him into this world? His son who came to him so desperate to prevent his own birth. His son who begged him not to hang himself while wearing a red rope burn around his throat, like a stigmata foreshadowing the sacrifice that Michael would need to make.

_I go and you live. God has a plan for us all. Better my neck in the noose than yours._

Jonas has shown him the way out. Now’s the time to disappear. In just a few months the whole town will be talking about Mikkel Nielson. Everyone will be wondering how he could’ve vanished into thin air, like a regular Houdini. _The question isn’t how, but when_. Michael knows, he’s always known, he can’t be around when they come looking. He can never go home again. His parents live only a few streets away, but they’ve been lost to him for decades. He’s been able to forget the boy he once was, but when that boy came walking into his house, he couldn’t hold onto his amnesia any longer. It’s become too painful to bear. He needs to escape it somehow. It might as well be this way.

By the time the boy Mikkel becomes a Missing poster…they had better both be gone.

Jonas and Hannah have not come back from the party at the Nielsons. He supposes that due to the wild weather, they were invited to stay over. He knows he must do this before they get home. Michael takes a breath and turns to the window. The storm has been raging all through the night, its lightning flashing beyond the glass, its wind shaking the trees. But now the first light of dawn is peaking through the clouds and all is calm once more. And it feels like time to go. There is still so much he doesn’t know; that he will never know now. And as he seals the envelop, climbs on the stool, and reaches for the noose he’s surprised how much peace he finds in that _not knowing_.

What strange comfort there is in being left in the dark.


	2. Jonas

_21\. June 2019, 7.33am_

Jonas slips a finger under his shirt and strokes the St Christopher dangling there on its string. The pendant feels cool against his chest. Last night Martha’s lips had trailed kisses there and they’d been warm on his goose-pimpled skin. He closes his eyes, his loins stirring at the memory. But Jonas blinks and quickly shakes himself out of it. He can’t get hard and horny now. Not when he’s in the car with his mom.

The radio is playing hits from the 80s. _You spin me right round, baby, right round_. His mother sings along as she drives. There’s a cigarette in her hand, hanging out the window, and a light breeze is ruffling her hair. The sun is already blazing in the sky, not a cloud in sight, but there’s still plenty of tree’s down in the road after the storm. It’s turning into a long ride home what with all the detours they’re having to make.

His mom takes a drag on her cigarette then catches his eye.

“Now there’s something I don’t see very often.”

Jonas frowns at her teasing tone. “What?”

“You can’t stop smiling. Like the cat that got the cream.”

Jonas bites his lip, bashful that he’s being so obvious. He knows what he and Martha did last night must be written all over his face. When he had slipped out of her bedroom afterwards, he had run straight into Mr Nielson on the landing. Jonas had been rooted to the spot, fearing an angry dad lecture. But Mr Nielson had only winked and wagged a finger, calling him Romeo. He had told Jonas to grab a sleeping bag from the cupboard and take it to Magnus’s room where he could stay over. He’d said he was already making up the sofa bed for Jonas’s mom downstairs. They had been the last guests at their party and the weather had gotten so bad it'd been too dangerous to drive home before morning.

“So you and Martha…” his mom continues. “Did you..?”

“Mama please!” he protests. “That’s private.”

“Jonas...” she purrs. “You’re sixteen now. What you do is your business. I just want to check you’re taking precautions. I’m still much too young to become a grandmother, you know.”

He laughs nervously. “Yes...of course.”

Jonas hopes she can’t tell he’s lying. He doesn’t think a girl can get pregnant her first time. He thinks he’s heard that somewhere, hopes it’s true. And he wonders suddenly if it _had_ been Martha’s first time. It’d certainly been his. But Martha seemed to know so much better than him what to do. He would’ve never made the first move like she did. He never would’ve come to the party with condoms because he never imagined she would lead him to her bed like that. And once it all started happening, he couldn’t bring himself to stop, didn’t want to be the one to cool things off. Maybe he should have. Maybe he needs to text Martha about morning after pills and all that other safe sex stuff.

He shifts in his seat, trying not to freak out. It will be okay, he tells himself. There won’t be any teen pregnancies and they’ll be more careful next time. He smiles at the thought of there being a next time. A smile he can’t help but share.

His mom giggles and shakes her head at him. “You’ve liked that girl for some time, haven’t you?” She stares at the road ahead, taking another drag of her cigarette. “It’s good to get what you want after waiting so long. You deserve this.”

His mom suddenly sounds distant, like she’s drifting into her own thoughts.

Which is fine by him. Jonas would rather be in his own head right now too.

When they finally pull up outside the house, Jonas bounds out of the car and heads first for the kitchen. He takes the milk from the fridge, twists the cap off and sniffs. It’s not sour but when he pours himself a glass it tastes warm. The storm must’ve brought down a power-line and knocked the electricity out. With the high temperatures they are forecasting today, their food is sure to spoil.

So Jonas begins taking it all out of the fridge, heaping it on their kitchen table.

“Mama! Papa!” he calls upstairs. “We’re going to have to eat everything!”

Jonas smiles at the thought of this family feast. He’s hungry enough for a big morning meal and likes the idea of sharing it with his parents. It feels like a rite of passage somehow. This post-virginity breakfast. Feeling like a grown up at the table.

Jonas wanders to the foot of the stairs, cricks his neck and stretches. He blinks, the stink of his armpits shocking him. He’s still wearing his party clothes. He should probably take a shower and change before he does anything else. He hurries upstairs, opens the cupboard and puts his hand to the boiler. There’s still hot water. But before he can reach the bathroom, his mom beats him to it.

“Sorry darling,” she coos. “You’ll have to wait. I’m having a bubble bath.”

She waltzes in ahead of him and starts running the taps. She’s wrapped up in her silk dressing gown, one of her raunchy romance novels tucked under her arm. And Jonas can’t help but frown when he realizes that his mom can’t seem to stop smiling this morning either. Like the cat that got the cream.

“Oh, your father’s not in bed...” she says like an afterthought as she’s locking the door on him. “Could you go and check he hasn’t fallen asleep in his studio again?”

Jonas nods lazily, his mouth widening into a yawn. He’s thinking that actually he might just go back to bed for a few hours. He was too giddy to sleep properly last night and he’s promised to go over to the Tiedemann’s house later this morning to play that new video game and smoke the weed Bartosz bought from Erik. But Jonas can still summon the energy to climb up to the attic and say hi to his dad. He always has time for his dad. And besides, he wants to share his good mood with him too.

At the top of the stairs, he finds the studio door is closed. He presses his ear to its wood but hears nothing from inside. His father must be asleep or deep into his painting. Jonas thinks maybe he ought to knock. Maybe he shouldn’t disturb the artist at work.

Then he gets another idea and smirks to himself.

“ _Boo!_ ” he shouts, bursting into the room.

Jonas freezes in the doorway and feels his world fall away fast. It crumbles at the sight of his father’s legs dangling in the air, his father’s neck in a noose, the rope tied to the ceiling beam.

No, this can’t be happening. He can’t be seeing this.

Jonas doesn’t know how long he stands there, staring numbly, doing nothing. But suddenly he’s running to his father, grabbing him round the waist, trying to lift him up. Trying to take the weight off his neck, so he can breathe. But Jonas’s ear is pressed to his dad’s chest. And he can feel him not breathing. Feel his heart not beating.

And no, this can’t be happening. He won’t let it happen. He just needs to get that rope off his dad’s neck so he can make him breathe again. He lifts the stool that’s toppled over on the floorboards and climbs onto it, reaching for the knot. The knot that has closed so tight around his father’s throat, bursting the blood vessels there, sending deep purple bruises stretching all the way up to his chin. And Jonas can see his dad’s face now he’s standing on the stool. He can see his pale cheeks, his slack mouth, his empty eyes and _he’s dead he’s dead he’s dead_ , but Jonas keeps clawing at the knot until the rope splits his fingernails, making them bleed.

Then suddenly the fight goes out of him. His arms drop to his sides. He staggers down from the stool. His back hits the radiator and he sinks to the floor, shaking all over, still staring up at his dad. Not wanting to see this…not willing to look away.

Tears blur his vision and slide down his cheeks, but the rest of him is silent and still, lifeless as the body hanging from the rope. Jonas feels like he is slipping out of himself. Feels like the boy he was is breaking into tiny pieces, melting into the air.

He knows already, he'll never be whole again.


	3. Hannah

_21\. June 2019, 8.55am_

Whenever Hannah reads one of her romance novels, she will always imagine Ulrich as the male lead. A younger Ulrich naturally, with less lines on his face and less grey in his hair. You can’t have everything you want in reality. But in her mind, Hannah can still make him any age she pleases. Like time travel for her secret desires.

Only those desires aren’t so secret now. It’s not just her little fantasy anymore. Who would’ve thought after so long this could finally be happening? Twenty-five years married to Katharina must have been one too many. She snorts a laugh, stretching out her arm and dropping her book on the floor, not caring if she loses the page.

The bathwater’s lukewarm now. All the bubbles have burst. She’ll have to get out soon, but first she slips her fingers under the water and slides them between her thighs. She closes her eyes, biting her lip and humming, as she teases herself down there. The next person to touch her this way will be Ulrich. Her and Michael haven’t made love for months now. Her husband is so twitchy and anxious these days, he can’t do what it takes to pleasure her. She had wondered if that was just something that happened to men in middle age. But Ulrich had no such trouble last night, even up against a shed wall, in the wind and rain.

When she finally climbs out of the bath and returns to the bedroom, there’s still no sign of her husband. Hannah thinks she’ll try to avoid him today. She doesn’t need any sinking feeling of guilt bringing her down. Besides, Michael’s in one of his moods. Knowing him, he’ll squirrel himself away in his attic for the rest of this week. And that doesn’t mean Hannah shouldn’t enjoy herself. It’s a glorious day outside, a hot sun streaming in through the windows. Since Ulrich will be seeing her naked soon, she slips into her swimsuit so she can work on her tan. She throws her dressing gown on loosely over the top and then heads downstairs, checking her phone as she goes to see if Ulrich has messaged her. Nothing yet, but it’s still early. If she’s still heard nothing by noon, then she’ll be angry with him.

For now, Hannah drops her phone into her deep pockets and crosses the hall to the kitchen. She finds Jonas has dumped the entire contents of their fridge out on the table. And just left it there. She rolls her eyes, swatting at the flies already hovering over it.

“Jonas!” she calls. “Boy, come down here and clear up this mess!”

No answer from upstairs. Jonas has probably gone back to bed. Or the kid is up there masturbating too over his night with Martha. Hannah smiles to think that she and her son got lucky at the same party. She feels like a teenager again.

Looking at all the food piled before her, she’s suddenly hungry. But she’s not going to eat. She’d rather fast for a day or two so she can look especially slim for Ulrich the next time they’re together. She wants to show off how she has kept her figure much better than Katharina has over the years. Still, if the power is out then they can’t have all this food going to waste. She decides to cook breakfast for the boys. Funny how she thinks of both Jonas and Michael as _'the boys'_. How it feels like she shares this house with two awkward and unsociable adolescents sometimes. She knows Michael will be busy working on those morbid paintings he never shows anyone, certainly not her. But he has to stop to eat occasionally. She might be a bad unfaithful wife in so many ways, but she won’t have him wasting away up there.

Tearing the plastic off a full packet of bacon, she throws it in a pan and gets it sizzling on the hobs. She calls up to them again, but still gets no answer. So she turns the heat down low before marching up the stairs to see what the two of them are up to. At the foot of the steps leading to the attic, she stops a moment and frowns. She can see from here the door is wide open. They should’ve been able to hear her. Neither of them are talking from what she can tell. It’s quiet up there. A quietness that suddenly unnerves her.

Hannah hurries the rest of the way up the stairs, halting in the doorway.

She stands there absorbing the sight of her husband’s hanging body. And the first thing she thinks (the _worst_ thing she thinks) is that she is not all that shocked by what Michael has done. His suicide makes immediate horrifying sense to her. She’s always known he had issues. She’s known since they were kids and she had issues too. It was what had brought them together, two peculiar lost children searching for connection. She knew that her husband had been depressed and withdrawn, especially this last year or so. You can’t share a bed with someone without feeling their deepest emotions bleeding across the mattress towards you. Hannah got depressed too sometimes. She knew that if it ever got too much for her, she had that gun in the box. She could stick it under her chin, pull the trigger and get it all over with.

Yes, she always felt like this could happen. And now it has, she’s overwhelmed by a feeling of…what? Déjà vu maybe? Was this the inevitable end to her marriage? Was this what she deserved? Had she always feared her husband might leave her this way? No...no, she didn’t think he would do this to Jonas. She thought he loved the boy enough to stick around, even if it pained Michael to stay in a world where he never really belonged.

 _Jonas_. Hannah looks down to see her son sat huddled against the radiator. He stares up at his father, his face a pale mask, his eyes utterly blank. And how long has he been sitting there like this? Hannah was at least an hour in the tub. A shudder passes through her and suddenly it feels like she’s walked in to find two dead bodies in this room.

“Jonas…” she says softly. “You need to get up. You need to come downstairs.”

He acts like he hasn’t heard her. She stretches a hand towards his shoulder but finds she’s afraid to touch him. Scared of what he’ll do. Not that Jonas has ever been an angry or violent child. She knows he would never do anything to hurt her. She’s more worried that he’s a danger to himself. He looks so fragile, a boy made of glass, close to shattering.

“Jonas, come on. Please, I…I’m going to have to call someone.”

Hannah can’t drag her fully grown teenage son out of here by force. But neither can she stand to be in this attic any longer. She turns her back and retreats halfway down the stairs, her phone already in hand. At first, she has no idea who she’s going to call. Who are you supposed to call when this happens? All she knows is she needs someone to help her get first Jonas and then Michael out of that room. An ambulance then? A mortician? No, she doesn’t want to be around strangers right now. As she scrolls through the names and numbers in her contact list, she finds her finger hovering over ‘Peter Doppler’. Charlotte’s husband. _The therapist._

She hits the dial button impulsively.

“Um, Hannah? Hannah…is that you?”

She remembers that Peter wasn’t at the Nielson's party last night. Charlotte had said that he had a summer cold, but he doesn’t sound hoarse or congested over the phone right now, only confused at why she would be calling him out of the blue.

“Yes, Peter. I...I’m so sorry to bother you.”

“No, it’s fine, but…is there something wrong?”

She swallows. “I think my son’s having a breakdown.”

“Jonas? What is he…what's happened?”

She lowers her voice to a whisper. “He…he won’t get up. I don’t know what to do. I just know that he needs help. He needs _professional_ help. And so I…I can ask you or I can call up the men in white coats. I thought I’d try you first.”

Hannah can’t bring herself to add the _Jonas just found Michael hanging by the neck in our attic_ part. She doesn’t want to scare Peter away. She needs him here. If Jonas is broken, she needs to get him fixed right now. Not leave his trauma untreated for years, pretending that it isn’t there and that it won’t drive him to do something drastic like his father.

Hannah holds her breath, waiting for an answer.

“I’ll be right over,” Peter says.


	4. Peter

_21\. June 2019, 10.02am_

Peter steps into the attic, carrying a blanket and a glass of water. These items seem almost cliché as a form of trauma first aid. But sometimes people who are in shock and grief respond best to the most predictable comforts offered to them.

Jonas is sitting in the spot where Hannah said he’d been for hours, his eyes staring torpidly up to the rafters. Peter was warned about the corpse strung from the ceiling beam only upon reaching the Kahnwald house. He could hardly turn his car back around then. He wouldn’t run out on a local family in their hour of need. But for the sake of his own sanity, Peter avoids looking up at Michael’s body. He hadn’t known Hannah’s husband very well. The man had always been a bit of a recluse, a regular absentee at their neighbourly gatherings. Peter holds onto that emotional distance now, shutting out the full horror of the scene before him.

Jonas meanwhile can’t seem to look away. Peter slowly comes to stand in his eyeline, breaking the staring battle the boy was in with his father’s suicide. It takes a moment before Jonas blinks and really seems to see Peter, like he’s just coming out of a hypnotist’s trance. Peter squats down so he can be level with Jonas’s hollow stare. He holds out the water and Jonas focuses on it, his eyes tense and perplexed. Like he’s never seen such a thing before. Like Peter has invented the glass of water and it’s blowing his mind.

“Will you come downstairs, Jonas?” Peter is careful to make this a request, not an order. “Your mother’s waiting there for you. She’s worried.”

Jonas remains unresponsive a moment longer. Then he inclines his head in the faintest of nods. He accepts the water, then lets Peter wrap the blanket around him and help him to his feet. Peter is just leading him towards the door when Jonas’s eyes dart back towards the ceiling again. The glass slips from his trembling hand and smashes on the floor. Jonas flinches and gasps at the shattering sound. Peter is quick to tell him not to worry, pressing a firm hand to his back and steering him the rest of the way out of the room.

Hannah is pacing on the landing, her damp hair in disarray, a cigarette between her fingers. She looks up and heaves a sigh of relief to see Jonas coming downstairs. The three of them continue to the ground floor. The Kahnwald kitchen smells of smoke and burnt bacon. Peter winces at the thought of family breakfasts, forever ruined. Bernadette had been cooking eggs for him in her trailer when he got Hannah’s call. She had been so happy that Peter had stayed the night, that he hadn’t left her at daybreak. When his phone rang, Peter had insisted it wasn’t his wife, but he could tell by Bernadette’s stung expression that she hadn’t believed him.

Peter knows he can’t think about that now. He has a job to do. Even though he’s not officially on the clock here, his therapist’s duty compels him to offer what support he can. He supposes this is why Hannah chose to call him. She must’ve wanted someone who was known to her, but neutral. Someone trained in how to help with this terrible blow.

“What now?” Hannah asks, her voice desolate.  
  
“Let’s go outdoors,” he suggests. “Get some air.”

Hannah nods and marches straight out to her yard, while Jonas follows slower, allowing himself to be guided by the gentle hand Peter is resting on his shoulder. Once the boy is outside, he wanders over to the nearest tree and sits himself in its shade, his face still as pale and catatonic as it had been in the attic. Peter can see Jonas is shivering despite the heat, clutching the blanket tight around him, like he wants to disappear into its folds.

Hannah stamps out her cigarette stub in the grass. Peter turns and sees she’s already fumbling to light another.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asks.

Her eyes are hard and demanding. She’s wanting a full diagnosis on the spot. Jonas is sitting just a little way out of their earshot, so Peter’s careful to keep his voice low.

“Naturally, he’s in shock. Under the circumstances, that’s perfectly…”

“Will he need to go to the hospital then?” she interrupts.

Peter hesitates. “His condition isn’t physiological…it’s brought on by acute stress.”

“So he’ll need to go to a hospital with treatments for that then?” She holds his stare, blowing smoke from the corner of her lips. “You…you work for the Winden psychiatric institution, right?”

He shakes his head. “No, I don’t work there. I just take on some of their out-patients for additional counselling. Sometimes I visit and lead group sessions.”

Hannah nods and he can see her mind is hastily forming a plan of action. “And is it a good facility? I know that Katharina’s mother used to work there, years ago. I remember back then they used to lock up some…some really dangerous lunatics.”

“Only on the closed ward. Juvenile patients would be kept far from…”

“Good.” She cuts him off and takes another decisive drag on her cigarette. “I think we better take Jonas there. I have to deal with this…this mess I’ve been left with. I need time to make sense of what my husband has done here. I can’t watch Jonas at the same time. And look at him. He will need watching. You know I…I think it was a mistake that I never got Michael to seek help. I always feared he might be...struggling. But I always thought he used his painting as his own personal therapy. I never thought to take him to a professional and find out what was wrong. And what…what if whatever was wrong with Michael has been passed down to Jonas? Like a bad gene?”

Peter just stands there and listens to Hannah ramble, a little unnerved by how quickly she’s coming around to the idea of placing her son in an institution. And he can't help but feel hurt by her assumption that Michael's instability has been passed to Jonas. As the son of a psychologically damaged man himself, Peter is all too familiar with this stigma. For years he's felt like he has to work harder to prove his sanity, both personally and professionally. He doesn’t like to make snap judgments regarding other people's family history. Only now Peter can’t help thinking that if Jonas does have some hereditary form of mental illness, perhaps it doesn’t just come from his father’s side.

“Do you have reason to believe your son’s at risk of self-harming?”

“I…I don’t know. I thought you were the expert here.”

Anger is threatening in her tone. Peter tries not to get into an argument with her.

“It’s just that…seeing as Jonas is a minor, it’s you who would have to make the decision to have him committed. For children and teenagers in distress, the facility will usually recommend home care. And I believe these days, there are fees for residential treatment…”

Her eyes flash. “And you think I can’t afford it?”

Peter falls silent, fearing Hannah is close to lashing out at him. But in truth, he didn’t think either of the Kahnwald parents earned a steady wage, both of them working freelance, Hannah as a masseur, Michael as a painter and decorator. He remembers Charlotte saying something about how Hannah’s mother in law let them stay in the house rent free.

With this in mind, Peter changes the subject. “Have you called anyone else about Michael yet? If you’re taking Jonas to the psychiatric hospital, you can’t just leave the body. You’ll have to report it.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t face all that right now.”

He winces. “Hannah, have you…have you told his mother?”

“Ines.” She sighs, squeezing her eyes closed. “ _Shit_ …”

She puts out her cigarette, taking her phone from her dressing gown pocket.

“I’ll call her. I’ll call her now.” She throws a nervous glance in Jonas’s direction. “Will you keep an eye on him for me? Will you talk to him? He won’t want to talk with me. Jonas always went to his father when he was upset. He…he was always closer to him.”

With these words, Peter sees the first hint of tears in Hannah’s eyes. She turns away before they can fall, retreating into the house again, already dialling. Peter doesn’t think that his job qualifies him to act as a surrogate father figure. But he still crosses the lawn to where Jonas is sitting, lowering himself onto the grass beside him. Jonas clasps his knees, drawing them tight into his chest, like a shield. And out in the sunlight, Peter notices the cracks in his nails, the dry blood on his fingertips.

“Hey, did you hurt your hands? Let me see…”

He reaches towards Jonas, but the kid flinches and coils his arms around his chest, hiding his fingers beneath his elbows. He shakes his head, signalling that he doesn’t want to be touched right now. Peter nods and recoils his hand.

“I…I couldn’t get the knot undone.”

Peter blinks. “What?”

His lips tremble. “The noose. I tried to get him out of it. But…it was too tight. I couldn’t pull it loose. I couldn’t help him. Couldn't undo the knot. My hands were shaking so bad and I…”

“Jonas…” Peter cuts in, “…listen to me. You could not have prevented this.” He chooses his words carefully, already sensing a potential case of survivor’s guilt. “I know it might be hard to hear right now, but…but there’s nothing you could’ve done. This wasn’t your fault.”

Jonas’s face hardens as he turns to meet his stare.

Peter’s heart sinks. He can tell the boy doesn’t believe him.


	5. Ines

_21\. June 2019, 10.54am_

Ines remembers the first day she almost lost him.

That day in the summer of 87 when the madman had escaped the asylum. It had been a sweltering hot afternoon and she had run all the way into the woods to rescue him. Afterwards Ines had carried the boy back to the house, her face dripping with sweat and tears. She remembers she had taken Michael straight up to bed, even though it was hours before sundown. She had brought up a tray of Hawaiian toast with the crusts cut off and hot milk with the pills crushed in. Michael had eaten in slow silent bites. And when he was done, he finally looked up and spoke. He hadn’t said a word to the police, but he would always confide in her.

“That man…” he’d said in a small flat voice, “…he was my Papa.”

The memory still chills her blood. Ines had been there at the caves when the kidnapper had clung to Michael and cried _‘This is my son!’_ The police had assured her afterwards that the man was delusional. They said when they were driving him back to the institution, he had seen some other kids at the bus stop and started yelling that they were his children too.

“You mean…he looked like your father?” she had asked.

It had pained Ines to see Michael so confused and conflicted. He had been getting so much better in her care and then that madman had put this crazy idea in his impressionable young mind.

“No, he didn’t look like him. He looked so much older.” He’d sighed, a hollow look in his eyes. “But it was him. I know it was.”

“Drink your milk, sweetheart,” she’d said, squeezing his shoulder.

That was when he’d started to cry. “I just want to go home.”

“You _are_ home,” she’d told him, wiping his eyes.

Michael had nodded, sucking up his tears. He’d asked if Ines would stay with him until he fell asleep. And of course, she’d stayed, even though with the pills in his milk, it didn’t take long for sleep to come. She had stayed by his bedside most of that night. Whatever else she had done, Ines had always tried to protect the boy. To heal him. That was the duty she took on when she became his mother.

The old man from the loony bin being Michael’s father was just another thing Ines had put down to her boy’s overactive imagination. Like the idea that he had come from the future. She knew it was impossible. But that didn’t mean there weren’t nights that she’d lain awake, unable to sleep, wondering if it could all somehow be true. And if it was true then…then who was the real kidnapper? Who was the one who’d really come to rescue Michael that day? Had she just been holding the child hostage, away from his true home?

All these thoughts are churning in Ines mind as she drives towards the old house which she and her adopted son had shared all those years ago. The house where Hannah tells her that Michael has taken his own life sometime during the night.

She’s been numb with shock since getting the call, unable to cry, not willing to believe it till she sees it with her own eyes. As she pulls into the driveway, Ines sees Hannah smoking in the shade of the porch, still in her dressing gown. Jonas is sat under a tree, some distance from his mother. A man who Ines doesn’t recognize sits beside him. They rise to their feet as she gets out of her car.

Ines goes to her grandson first.

He’s wearing a white shirt so rumpled she supposes he must've slept in it. As she draws closer Ines finds that Jonas smells very pungently of unwashed teenager. Not the most pleasant of odours but it doesn’t stop her pulling him into her arms. Jonas stiffens for a moment, then slowly melts into her hold, burying his face in her shoulder. Hannah told her on the phone that Jonas was the one who found the body. She wonders if anyone has hugged the boy yet. She has the sinking feeling that they haven’t.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers in his ear.

Jonas nods against her neck, then slips out of her embrace, retreating to the tree. Ines turns to see Hannah approaching. The two of them come together, but they don’t hug. It’s like they’re making a point of not hugging. They both keep their guard up and their arms tightly folded across their chests. Hannah has made Ines feel unwelcome in her old home for a long time now. Ines had let Michael take the house when she got her pension and the baby came along, but she hadn’t expected to suddenly feel so cut out of his life, in the same way that Ines knows her daughter in law cuts her out of most of the family photos.

Ines had asked Michael once what he liked about Hannah. This was back when the two of them were still children, but Ines already had a funny feeling about that Krüger girl. Hannah had been a couple of years older, but she looked and acted far less mature. She seemed to like having a lonely little boy trailing after her like a puppy.

“Hannah doesn’t mind that I’m weird,” Michael had answered with a shrug. “I think she’s a little weird too. But she hides it better than me.”

Ines didn’t like to admit it, but maybe that’s what Michael had needed. Someone who could help him pretend. Hannah was like his magician’s assistant. A pretty distraction of a girl at his side. Hannah helped him keep up all his illusions.

Or at least, she had done until last night.

“Ines…” Hannah begins haltingly, struggling to find the right tone. They’ve already tried awkwardly consoling each other over the phone. Instead of repeating that little ordeal now, Hannah gets straight to the point. “Will you be okay to stay here? I’m taking Jonas to the hospital. Someone needs to wait with the…with Michael.”

She frowns. “Jonas? Is he hurt?”

“No, not that kind of hospital. I’m taking him to the psychiatric institution.” Her hand twitches as she flicks her cigarette ash into the grass. “He’s taking this really hard. I need to get him checked out. Look at what the options are for…for mental health care.”

Ines shakes her head. “Of course this is hard for him. He’s just experienced a terrible trauma. But…but you shouldn’t be driving him out to some facility full of strangers. You’re his mother. You should be taking care of him at home.”

Hannah grits her teeth, her eyes narrowing.

“Like you took care of Michael, you mean?”

Ines feels like she’s been slapped. She and Hannah glare at each other for a moment longer before she has to turn away. Ines thinks today will be the last time she visits her old house for a long while. She can’t look Hannah in the eye right now. Because the truth is she’s never liked the woman. She’s never thought Hannah was a good enough wife for her son or a good enough mother to Jonas.

But most of all…she’s afraid Hannah might be right.

Had all those pills that Ines slipped into Michael’s drinks at bedtime been bad medicine for him? A way to suppress his pain, rather than working through it, letting the wound breathe? Had…had Michael finally needed to escape his pain another way?

“Mrs Kahnwald? Is there anything I can do for you?”

A tall slender fellow with a kindly bearded face hovers beside her. It’s Miss Kahnwald not Mrs, but Ines doesn’t bother correcting him. She realizes this man is familiar to her after all, but it takes her another moment to remember how she knows him. Yes, of course...she sees him at St Christopher's church most Sunday mornings. She knows to ask after his father. 

“You’re Helge’s boy, aren’t you?”

Helge Doppler. One of the victims of the child killer from the asylum. The only one who had survived his abduction. Other than Michael that was. But Helge had come back from his ordeal with scars all over his face, one of his ears smashed to a pulp. Thank God she had rescued Michael before that madman had hurt him. What she’d give to save him again now.

“Yes, it’s Peter. I’m very sorry for your…”

“Will you help me upstairs? I need to see my son.”

Peter nods solemnly, letting her lean on his arm. Ines lives in a ground floor apartment these days. Her old knees can’t really manage stairs anymore. But she makes it up both sets of steps to reach the attic. It’s only when she sees Michael’s body hanging there that her tears start flowing. With a trembling hand, she takes a stethoscope from her bag. She already knows she won’t hear any heartbeat, but with her Michael she has to make extra sure this isn’t a trick. An illusion sprung from his childhood love of magic.

She presses the bell to his chest. The silence crushes her.

“Shall I call for an ambulance?” Peter asks, lingering just outside the attic door.

“The coroner,” she answers, pressing a handkerchief to her face.

Peter nods again and heads downstairs to make the call. Ines clings to Michael’s t-shirt, wanting desperately to cut him down. But she knows she’s not supposed to disturb the body. She forces herself to turn away, her eyes scanning over the dark canvases that fill the studio instead. Michael's surrealist art obsession that at some point overtook his love of all things Houdini. She finds it hard to look at his paintings too, these renderings of the turmoil inside him that she always tried to smother. She turns her eyes down and sees there's a puddle of water and shards of broken glass on the floor. Stepping around the mess, she drifts over to the desk. She blinks when she sees an envelope propped up against a family photo and a clutter of paint pots. A letter that nobody else seems to have noticed.

_Do not open before November 4th, 10.13pm_

Ines feels her blood run cold again. She stashes the letter in her bag, thinking she’ll keep it secret and won’t open it till it’s time. She’ll respect her son’s last wishes. But part of her fears she can already guess the truth it holds inside. The truth that she tried to force him to forget. Yet for some reason he remembers this specific time and date to the minute.

And suddenly Ines is wondering...

Was _this_ the future that Michael had come from?


	6. Bartosz

_21\. June 2019, 11.26am_

Jonas is late again and Bartosz is starting to feel pissed at him.

He told his friend yesterday that if they were going to blaze up that weed, then he’d need to get here no later than 11am. His parents are out for a business meeting and then a luncheon with some client. But they said they’d be home by mid-afternoon. Bartosz wants a decent few hours to get baked and play his new game before they get back, but they might miss their window if Jonas doesn't get here soon.

He knows his friend can be unreliable. He knows that Jonas is a shitty timekeeper and he’s spaced out enough without needing to smoke a thing. But really, what’s his excuse today? That he was at the Nielson’s party last night? That was an old people party. No way did it go on later than midnight. Jonas has no good reason to be sleeping in so late. And if he’s not still in bed then why isn’t he answering his texts? Losing patience, Bartosz speed dials his friend. The phone just rings and rings in his ear, getting no answer.

“Asshole,” he mutters, stashing his phone back in his pocket.

If he’s being honest, Bartosz was already pissed at Jonas. He’s been twitchy with frustration since last night. Because of Martha. Because he’s worried his friend might be sneaking ahead of him in their race to get with that girl. And Jonas is so dozy he doesn’t even realize they’re competing, let alone that he’s the one who’s winning with her.

Yesterday had started off so great. Swimming with Martha in the lake, the way her body had looked in that bikini, the way her boobs had brushed against his shoulders when she jumped on his back to dunk him under. All the teasing and splashing, his wet skin on hers. And Jonas was just sat on the bank, not wanting to go in the water, scared of the cold or some shit. But then Bartosz told that dumb ghost story and Martha had stormed off in a mood. She’d gone to sit by Jonas and read her play. And Bartosz had carried on fooling around with Magnus, trying to pretend like he didn't care. But whenever he glanced over to the side of the lake, he noticed Jonas and Martha were sitting a little closer together.

And now he’s wondering…did they get closer at the party too?

The phone buzzes in his pocket. Bartosz takes it out, thinking that Jonas must’ve finally pulled his head out of his ass and got around to messaging him back. But when he looks down, he sees this new text is not from his friend. It’s from Martha.

_hey is Jonas with you? please get him to check his phone._

Bartosz frowns, his shoulders tensing. So he isn’t the only one struggling to get hold of Jonas this morning. And why is Martha suddenly so desperate to talk to him? The squirming in his gut tells Bartosz something has happened. He knew he should’ve been at that party last night. If only his stupid dad hadn’t insisted on him staying home for dinner. If only his stupid mom didn’t have some petty grudge against the Nielsons that seemed to go back to when they were all at high school together. If it wasn’t for all that bullshit, then he could’ve been at the party with Martha too. He could’ve made his move before Jonas did.

 _Fuck._ Had Jonas really gone for it with her? Bartosz wouldn’t have thought his shy dopey friend had it in him. But…but if he scored with Martha last night, why the hell isn’t he calling her back? Bartosz doesn’t think Jonas is the type to ghost a girl the morning after. Not that Jonas has ever had a girlfriend before. Maybe that’s the problem? Maybe the dumbass doesn’t know what to say to Martha in the sober light of day?

He texts Martha back right away, not keeping her waiting.

_no problem. he’ll be here any minute. I’ll tell him._

Bartosz pockets his phone along with the joint he rolled ready for when Jonas arrived. He decides he’s not going to wait around to find out what’s going on. He’s certainly not going to spend today playing messenger boy for these two. He locks up the house, checks the security system’s on, and then gets on his bike. If it turns out the worst has happened, if it turns out Jonas hooked up with Martha while Bartosz was stuck sipping wine with his stupid parents, he at least wants to know about it. No, more than that. He expects Jonas to spill every little sordid detail about what Martha Nielson is like in bed.

It’s not until Bartosz cycles up to the Kahnwald house that he realizes something is terribly wrong. There are three cars crammed into the driveway, the one Jonas’s mom drives and two more that he doesn’t recognize. Mrs Kahnwald is stood outside the porch in her dressing gown and slippers. She looks a hot mess, her hair sticking out everywhere, a sheen of sweat on her brow. As he gets off his bike, Bartosz looks around for Jonas. He sees his friend sat beneath a tree, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, his forehead resting on his wrists. He looks…he looks like he might be crying.

Before he can get any closer, Jonas’s mom hurries forward to intercept him.

“Hey Mrs Kahnwald…” he begins. “Has…has something happened?”

She has her hands raised, like she’s surrendering or trying to hold him back.

“Bartosz sorry, it’s not…it’s not a good time. Maybe you should...”

“Is everything okay?” He lowers his voice. “Is Jonas okay?”

“No, he’s not.” She winces, looking resigned. “His father’s dead.”

Bartosz stops in his tracks, his jaw falling open, his mind going numb. He didn’t know quite what he was expecting when he stumbled on this bizarre scene, but it certainly wasn’t this.

“Oh Jesus…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry to hear that, Mrs Kahnwald.” He shifts from foot to foot. Unsure what to do with his hands, he stuffs them into his pockets. “That’s really…did he have an accident? Or like, a brain hemorrhage or something?”

Mrs Kahnwald just shakes her head vaguely, avoiding the question. He guesses it’s not the most sensitive of questions. But Bartosz doesn’t quite know how to act right now. He’s never been over to a house where someone just died before. Mrs Kahnwald pulls a cigarette pack from her pocket and opens it up, only to find that it’s empty. She mutters a curse under her breath and throws the box down in the grass. Bartosz wonders if he should maybe offer her the joint in his pocket. He decides he better not. It would be too weird to offer dope to someone’s mom. But man, she really looks like she could use some right now.

He glances over to Jonas again. His friend has lifted his head a little, peaking at him over his forearms. Bartosz can see from here he’s pale and clammy, his eyes bloodshot red. He looks like he’s coming around from the worst drug trip anyone ever took.

“We’ll be leaving soon,” Mrs Kahnwald says. “I don’t want Jonas here when the morticians arrive to carry the body out. He’s seen enough already this morning. You should probably go home.” She narrows her eyes. “And keep this to yourself, okay? Don’t make what’s happened here the talk of the town just yet.”

“Sure, but umm…aren’t you going to change, Mrs Kahnwald?”

Her robe is very loosely tied and falling open at its middle. Bartosz can see Mrs Kahnwald is wearing a polka dot swimsuit underneath. He tries not to notice that Jonas’s mom has nice tits for a lady her age. It’s really distracting him when he’s trying to find the appropriate way to react here. Jesus, what’s wrong with him?

Mrs Kahnwald looks down at herself and hurriedly reties her robe, like she’d genuinely not been aware of what she was wearing before he mentioned it.

“I was…I was heading outside to sunbathe, before…” She doesn’t finish that sentence but Bartosz gets it. One moment, it was a normal summer’s morning. The next her husband's dead. “…I’ll go inside and dress. Can you watch Jonas for me?”

Bartosz feels a little weird being asked to babysit his friend. But whatever.

“Sure.” He squirms. “I don’t know what to say to him though.”

Mrs Kahnwald’s face tightens into a very pinched smile. “I don’t know what to say either.” She glances over her shoulder, then turns back to him. “Just see if you can get him to change and clean himself up, will you?”

She slips away into the house, leaving him alone with Jonas in the garden. Bartosz is having to shift his mood really fast. Just a few minutes ago he’d been jealous and annoyed at Jonas. Now he needs to be a good friend. He can’t be a jerk right now. Bartosz feels guilty that he actually has to tell himself to be a decent person in this situation.

He shuffles over to stand near where Jonas is sitting.

“Shit, man…sorry to hear about your Papa. Like, I don’t even know what to say. Seriously. It’s so harsh. I mean…if my mom or dad died, it’d really screw me up. Kids our age just shouldn’t have to worry about losing our parents, right?”

Jonas just stares into space and Bartosz can’t imagine where his head is at. When he was little, Bartosz used to get scared thinking about car crashes and other freak accidents that could leave him orphaned. His parents were both only children, just like him. He doesn’t have any aunts and uncles. He never even had grandparents on either side. So if his parents suddenly died, he’d be completely alone. I mean, sure they would leave him a bunch of money. But he’d have no family left whatsoever. Nobody but Jonas, he guesses.

“So your Mama says you’re leaving soon,” he says, just to fill up the silent air around them. “Are you going to your grandma's place or something?”

Jonas shakes his head. “My mother’s taking me to the nuthouse.”

Bartosz almost laughs at this, then realizes Jonas is serious.

“She thinks I’m losing it,” he goes on. “Thinks I might hang myself too.”

Bartosz tries not to react to this new bit of information ( _holy fuck…Mr Kahnwald killed himself_?). Instead he takes a breath and offers Jonas his hand, wanting to pull his friend up off the grass.

“Well, you’ll just have to go and prove to the headshrinkers you’re not crazy.” He nods to the house. “Getting changed into some clean clothes might help.”

He refrains from saying _‘You stink, dude’_ , even though he’s thinking it. Jonas smells of the kind of sweat that’s brought on by something more than hot weather. The sort of sweat that confirms all Bartosz’s suspicions about what went down between him and Martha last night. But it’s harder to feel envious about it now. No, he really wouldn't want to switch places with Jonas right now.

Jonas stands up on his own and they go inside the house. Bartosz frowns at the mess of food on the kitchen table but he doesn’t mention it. Then he spies a laundry basket on top of the washing machine. Eager to help, he wanders over to it, rummaging through a stack of folded clothes. He pulls out a yellow t-shirt and holds it up for Jonas’s approval. It’s stupid really. He picked that sunny color like it might somehow cheer his friend up. Instead Jonas just shrugs and heads into the downstairs bathroom. He unbuttons his shirt and slips it off, letting it drop on the floor. He finds some deodorant in the cabinet and sprays under his arms and all over his chest. Then he lathers up his hands with soap and scrubs his cheeks so hard it's like he wants to scratch his skin off and be left with a face full of scar tissue. Bartosz lingers in the doorway, holding the t-shirt, watching his friend go through the motions, his movements jagged, his shoulders visibly trembling.

Jonas wipes his face with a flannel, then raises his head to look in the mirror. Suddenly, he lets out a rasp, staggering back from the sink, like he’s just seen something terrifying in the glass. He knocks into Bartosz, who catches his friend’s arm, trying to steady him. Jonas is panting and pale, breaking into a cold sweat. He drops to his knees and flips up the toilet seat, hunching over its bowl, ready to puke. Nothing comes up. He retches a few times then spits in the toilet water before slumping back against the wall.

“Hey…you okay?” Bartosz asks, squatting by Jonas’s side, but still wary that he might throw up any moment. He keeps his feet carefully tucked out of vomit range. The sneakers he has on are really expensive.

“I thought I saw…” Jonas shakes his head, “…never-mind.”

Bartosz doesn’t ask about whatever scary-ass thing Jonas clearly just hallucinated in the mirror. He’s a little distracted by the necklace that’s hanging over Jonas’s bare chest. It’s some old looking silver coin on a string.

“Hey…what’s that?” he asks, nodding towards it.

Jonas looks down, blinking at the pendant. He closes his palm around it and sighs. “Martha gave it to me.” He swallows, suddenly looking more depressed, which Bartosz didn’t think was even possible. “Oh God, Martha…”

“Yeah,” says Bartosz. “She texted me to say she’s been messaging you all morning. She asked me to get you to call her back.”

Jonas is already shaking his head, his panic rising.

“I can’t see her. Not now. Not like this. Please…please tell her I…”

Bartosz reaches out and presses a hand to his shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll cover for you. What are friends for?”

“Thanks.” Still looking queasy and faint, he reaches up a weak hand to cling to Bartosz’s sleeve. Then he raises the corners of his lips in an even weaker smile. “Thanks, man. You’re a good friend.”

Jonas says this so sweetly. It makes Bartosz wish it were true.

Because all he can think right now is… _wow,_ Jonas really is losing it. If he’s seeing shit in the mirror, then maybe his mom’s right that he needs to be checked in at the mental institution. And if Jonas is going to be out of the picture for a while, then maybe...maybe the race for Martha is still on? Maybe there is still time for him to catch up?

Perhaps he'll still be the one who wins.


	7. Martha

_21\. June 2019, 12.28pm_

_Hey sleepyhead. Still waiting for you to text me back. Are you really still in bed? Or did you forget your phone when you went to Bartosz’s house? Either way, you owe me a lot of replies! Please answer soon. Don’t want to feel mad at you today. Martha xx_

She hesitates a moment before pressing send. Her message joins the other increasingly desperate sounding messages she’s been sending Jonas over the course of the morning. Now it’s past noon and she’s still heard nothing back. Jonas and his mom slipped away from their house before she got a chance to say goodbye to him. So she knows he was up early. At first, she just figured he must’ve gone back to bed. But for this long?

Last night, Jonas had been sending her messages till 2am. He’d said he had to burrow down deep in his sleeping bag so the light from his phone didn’t wake Magnus, whose bedroom floor he was crashing on. She scrolled back through the dozens of sweet little texts he had sent her in the wee hours. Thanking her for the necklace. Telling her how pretty she’d looked in her party dress. Asking concerned questions about what they had done together in her bed. Checking if she was okay, worrying whether he had gone too fast, hoping she didn’t regret it. She had texted back to reassure him that she’d enjoyed it, that she had wanted him, that she had liked him for a while now. When Jonas replied to say he’d liked her for a long time too, Martha wrote back saying – _‘Snap! We really are a perfect match.’_

She’d hoped he might text back the words; _‘Never think anything else’_. But he’d just sent her a heart emoji and a smiley face. She hadn’t minded at the time. She’d giggled and shook her head. But after spending a whole morning staring at texts not only unanswered but unseen, she was worried something might be wrong. Or maybe it was just her? Maybe last night hadn’t meant as much to Jonas as she thought it had?

She sets her phone down on the dining table, trying to ignore it, as she picks up her _Ariadne_ script instead. The school were holding auditions near the end of summer, so they could start rehearsals right away in the autumn term. Martha really wants to try out for a main part this time, so she is trying to memorize her monologue early. But she can’t absorb a single word right now. She just stares blankly at the same page for five minutes straight, her hand dipping into a punnet of grapes she has taken from the fridge, popping them rhythmically into her mouth and crushing them between her teeth. Suddenly a pimply red hand reaches over her shoulder, snatching its own fistful without asking.

“Hey!” she snaps. “Keep your diseased hands off my food!”

Mikkel just stands there blinking in his pajamas.

“What? You’re supposed to give grapes to sick people.”

Martha narrows her eyes at the pestilent boy. Her parents got some cream for him at the doctors yesterday, but his rash still looks inflamed and gross. And Martha’s the one who has got stuck babysitting him. Mom was out giving Magnus a driving lesson. Dad had gone for a run, telling Martha before he left that if she has nothing better to do than stare at her phone all day, then she can take a turn childminding her little brother.

“Fine.” She shoves the punnet towards him. “You’ve contaminated them now anyway.” She buries her nose back in her play. “And I’ve lost my appetite just looking at you.”

“Magnus says I look like a zombie out of _The Walking Dead._ ”

She peaks over the pages of her text to see Mikkel smiling, as if pleased with their brother’s assessment. Martha just rolls her eyes at him. Mikkel takes the grapes and sits himself down on the couch, turning on the TV and switching over to Discovery Channel. Martha tries to block out the documentary he’s watching about some prehistoric asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, so she can focus on her reading. She manages to resist temptation for a whole ten seconds longer. Then she reaches for her phone again. Still no answer from Jonas.

Martha bites down on her lip. She remembers what she said yesterday when she had been sitting with Jonas by the lake. How sometimes it thrilled her, not knowing what might change in the next five minutes. Only now she’s worried over how different Jonas can be from one moment to the next. How strange it had been when he suddenly came back to sit on the bank after saying he needed to rush off to his grandma’s house. He had been wearing that yellow raincoat of his, zipped up to his chin, even though it was a scorching summers day. And there had been this wounded look in his eyes, like he’d just come home from a war. Like he'd lost his innocence and seen terrible things.

She had known Jonas since they were little kids. But when he kissed her by the lake it felt like she had known him longer. Decades longer. A whole lifetime longer. And when he got up to leave, she could’ve sworn there were tears in his eyes, like he never expected to see her again. Of course, he’d shown up at her parent’s party a few hours later. But he had changed once more. The Jonas that she’d taken up to her bedroom had been timid, confused, a little clueless even, no longer seeming to know what he’d clearly wanted earlier that afternoon. When Martha had kissed him, at first it had been like she was kissing a stranger. Or like she was performing a kiss scene in a play with an actor who was stiff with stage fright and didn’t remember his lines. Who didn’t remember those words he’d been longing to say just a short time before.

“You know, zombies could never really happen,” Mikkel says abruptly, cutting into her thoughts.

She tries to ignore him, but the know-it-all kid never shuts up when he has some wisdom he’s determined to show off.

“You can’t be dead and still move around,” her brother goes on. “You need your cerebellum for motor control. And if your brain still works, then you’re not really a zombie. You’d just be back to life again. And that’s impossible after rigor mortis has set in.”

Martha raises her head, ready to tell Mikkel to go be putridly ill in another room and quit bothering her. But before she can speak the doorbell rings. And Martha is up on her feet, rushing to answer it, stopping only briefly by the mirror to check her hair looks okay.

But when she opens up, it’s not Jonas who is stood on her doorstep. It’s Bartosz, parking his bike in her driveway, sweat trickling over his brow like he’s cycled here fast. She tries her best to mask her disappointment. She’d texted Bartosz too about an hour earlier to ask if he could give Jonas a nudge to message her back. But he’d been no help either.

“Oh, hey. I thought that you and Jonas were hanging out?”

Bartosz winces. “Um, yeah…we were supposed to.”

She frowns at his solemn tone. “And what? He stood you up?”

“Not exactly.” He swallows. “Can I come in?”

His feet fidget on the Welcome mat and he’s struggling to hold her stare. And Martha gets that feeling again. The sense that something is about to happen and in the next five minutes everything is going to change. And judging by Bartosz’s face, it won’t be changing in a good way. Still, she has to know what’s going on. So she gestures for him to come through to the kitchen. She stands beside the dining table, bracing her hands on the top of the nearest chair. Bartosz stares back at her, not seeming to know where to begin.

“Has something happened?” she prompts.

Bartosz takes a deep breath and then just spits it out.

“It’s Jonas. His…his father has died.”

“What?” She shakes her head. “No, please no, that can’t be…”

“Mr Kahnwald is dead?!” says a voice behind her.

Her head whips round to see Mikkel sat up on his knees on the sofa, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping. She’d forgotten he was even there. She raises a hand to shush him.

“How…how did this happen? What happened to him?!”

Bartosz squirms for a moment longer before answering. “I think it was suicide. That he like…strung himself up in their attic or something.” With another wince, he adds, “And I think it might have been Jonas who found the body.”

She raises a trembling hand to her mouth. “Oh God…poor Jonas.”

“I know.” He nods. “It’s pretty fucked up, right?”

“I just saw Mr Kahnwald yesterday,” Mikkel butts in. “I went inside their house to pee and he was acting really weird. He kept staring at me. Like he was scared of me or…”

“Mikkel, this isn’t about you!” she snaps. “Just keep out of it, will you!”

Martha doesn’t mean to yell, but the words come bursting out of her. There’s a panic rising in her chest, a sudden ache in her heart and tears blurring her vision. She blinks them away in time to see Mikkel rolling his eyes and stomping out of the room, heading upstairs. He seems to know better than to argue with her when she’s already crying. Bartosz is still at her side, one arm raised and his hand hovering in the space between them, like it’s not sure where it should place itself. Martha just keeps clinging to the chair, her head reeling.

Then she hears the door opening once more. She turns to see her own father, her living breathing father, coming in from his run. He glances up the stairs just in time to hear Mikkel slamming his bedroom door. Then he looks back and frowns at Martha’s tear-stained face.

“Have you and your brother been fighting while I…?” he asks.

Before he can finish his sentence, Martha rushes into his arms, sobbing hard against his chest. Her father quickly wraps one strong arm around her back, cradling her head with his other hand. His fingers stroke through her hair and his voice makes shushing sounds in her ears.

“Hey, hey, hey, what has happened? What’s wrong?”

Martha is too choked up to answer. She’s thinking of something her drama teacher said to her. That if she wanted to portray real emotions on the stage then she’d need to put herself in the shoes of a person with a lived experience of those feelings. As she clings to her father, all she can think is that Jonas will never get to hug his own dad like this anymore. He won’t have him there to stroke his hair or wipe away his tears ever again. And that thought terrifies her. It crushes her. She feels devastated for him beyond words. Just the thought of losing someone in her family, _anyone_ in her family, is almost too much to think about, let alone live through as Jonas is doing right now.

“It’s Mr Kahnwald,” Bartosz explains. “Jonas’s dad. He killed himself.”

“What?” And suddenly Martha’s dad is pushing her back, holding her at arm’s length and searching her face for confirmation. She manages a tearful nod and watches as her dad’s face turns pale. He staggers back from her, making for the door. “I have to go.” He flashes Martha a very brief apologetic glance. “Stay here with your brother.”

Before Martha can stop him, her father bolts through the door again.

“HEY!” she yells after him, but it does her no good. He is already taking off at a run. Snatching up her phone, Martha storms into the living room, throwing herself down on the couch. “Why is it everyone in this family only thinks of themselves?!”

Bartosz follows her nervously over to the sofa, perching on its arm.

“I don’t think Jonas wants to see anyone right now anyway.”

Martha nods, swallowing her tears. That makes sense. All her unanswered messages make sense now too. She stares guiltily at her screen. She's been pestering Jonas all morning while he’s been dealing with this. She prays he hasn’t checked his phone yet. She wishes there was some way to take her past dozen texts back. She realizes she had better write something else and send it fast, so he knows she is thinking of him.

“I have to message him...” Her fingers are trembling as they clutch around her screen. “I have to say something. I have to tell him that I…”

Her voice trails off. She can’t say the word ‘ _love_ ’. She doesn’t think she can type it either. Neither of them had the nerve to say it last night. They are still too young for it. They had exchanged kisses and sweat, necklaces and heart emojis. But not that word. Though the words that Jonas had spoken to her beside the lake felt like they had come close.

“I didn’t know what to say either.” Bartosz's hovering hand finally comes to rest on her shoulder. She flinches a little at his touch, but she doesn’t shrug him off. He seems to sense her ambivalence. “Do you want me to leave?”

Martha puts her phone down on the couch cushion beside her, pulling her knees into her chest and tucking her t-shirt over the top of them. Slowly she reaches up to clutch the hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t really want Bartosz here right now. She wishes desperately she could be with Jonas instead. But she can’t stand the thought of being alone right now.

“No,” she murmurs. “Please don’t leave me.”


	8. Ulrich

_21\. June 2019, 1.01pm_

Ulrich makes it to the Kahnwald house just in time to see a stretcher covered with a white sheet being carried through the front door. He presses a hand to his mouth as he keeps to the treeline out of sight, watching as the body is loaded into the back of the mortician’s van. There’s no sign of Hannah’s car in the driveway, just an elderly dark-haired woman standing on the lawn talking with a man holding a clipboard. Ulrich catches his breath then slowly reaches into the pocket of his joggers, taking out his phone and typing a message.

_Hannah I just heard. I am so sorry. Let me know if you need anything._

He hesitates a moment before pressing send. He imagines he won’t get a reply anytime soon, given all Hannah must be dealing with. So it shocks him to hear his phone buzz just as he is slipping it back into his pocket, a new message received within a minute.

_I need you. Come meet me. I am in the car park at the psychiatric hospital._

Ulrich frowns, his stomach clenching up. He really hadn’t expected Hannah would ask to see him. He had seen her briefly first thing that morning after he had crept downstairs to find her hurriedly packing up the sofa bed, saying that she’d be getting Jonas up and going right away. Ulrich had said they could both stay for breakfast, but Hannah had just shaken her head at the idea of sitting at a table with Katharina and their kids after what they had done together the night before. She hadn’t kissed him before she’d left and Ulrich feels wary of what Hannah needs from him now. But it’s not like he can say no to a grieving widow.

_I will be right there. Give me ten minutes._

Ulrich sends the message. Then winces, realising he’ll have to sprint to get there as fast as he’s promised. The local nuthouse isn’t too far away from here and Winden is such a small town you can run a full lap around its outskirts barely breaking a sweat. But he has already exhausted himself with a long run today. He’d been running to try and clear his head, so he could decide what to do next. Last night he’d been drunk on champagne and dizzied by the thought of twenty-five years a married man. Katharina at his side every morning, not caring to have sex any longer, not even on their anniversary. Then the storm had come, and he had felt something electric and magnetic in the wild wind around him and Hannah. His desire had cast a spell over his senses. For just one moment, Ulrich had wanted something passionate and new, a break from the tired old cycle his homelife has become.

But this morning, waking with a hangover in the harsh light of day, Ulrich had been thinking he better put a stop to this thing with Hannah before it got out of hand. He had been planning what to say, thinking he’d tell her how she’d looked beautiful in the rain, how he wasn’t sure what came over him, how he would cherish the memory but they really needed to think about their families now. That was before he got back to the house and the kids had told him that Hannah’s husband was dead. That Michael Kahnwald had killed himself the very morning after Ulrich had fucked his wife at his own silver wedding party. The timing of this suicide couldn’t just be a coincidence, right? Since hearing the news, his detective’s mind had been working overtime, wondering if Michael might have come over and seen them out in the backyard. Or worse, if Hannah had gone home and told him.

Right now, Ulrich tries not to think about why Michael took his own life or why Hannah is over at the loony bin. He just puts his head down and runs. His feet seem to know the way between the Kahnwald house and the Winden asylum, almost like he has run this way before, in a similar state of panic. He can’t say how he guesses the way between the trees. It’s like a sixth sense is telling him where to go. Something like déjà vu.

He makes it to the car park to find Hannah smoking on the lawn outside. She stands close to one of the entrances and a sign that reads ‘Adolescent Unit’. Ulrich slows his pace, panting through the last few strides towards her. As he draws near, she stubs out her cigarette and turns to face him with eyes that are weary, but not wet.

“How did you know?” she asks, stiffly.

“That Tiedemann kid. He was over at our house telling Martha.”

“The little shit. I asked him to keep quiet.” She rolls her eyes, then takes a tentative step closer. “Still, I’m glad that you came. I need you right now.”

Ulrich is hunched over his knees, catching his breath, not quite ready for the intensity of Hannah’s stare. He looks away, nodding towards the building.

“What are you doing here?” he gasps out.

“Jonas.” Hannah releases a long sigh. “He was the one who found Michael this morning and he…he just fell apart. I couldn’t get him to move. He wouldn’t even look at me. In the end, I had to ask Peter to come over. Get his advice on what I should do.”

“Peter? You mean Charlotte’s husband?”

Ulrich’s mind veers off on a tangent. Peter hadn’t been at the party last night. When Charlotte said he was sick, he’d sensed it was a lie. He knows the Dopplers have been having problems over the last year, their marriage on shaky ground. Not that Charlotte has confided in him, but he can tell from the way she’s been on the job – a little off her game, sullen, stern and less likely to laugh at his jokes than she used to be. He’d guessed that Peter was having an affair. Had it been with Hannah? Was Ulrich not the first married man who she…

“Yes, Peter Doppler,” Hannah confirms. “The _therapist_.”

She’s eyeing him sharply. Like she can read his mind and knows he is thinking the worst of her. Ulrich wipes the sweat off his brow, trying not to be so transparent.

“Of course.” He swallows. “And Peter made you bring Jonas to this place?”

The distaste leaks through in his voice. He can’t help it. The Winden psychiatric institution has always given him the creeps. The old nuthouse has been part of the town for decades and a lot of horror stories about its more dangerous patients have slipped out over the years.

Hannah squirms a little, suddenly struggling to meet his eye.

“Peter said Jonas was having a…an acute stress reaction or something. I wanted him to stay at home of course, but Peter said he thought I better bring him here and get him checked out. And he’s the professional, right? I only want to do what’s best for my son’s well-being here.” She nods towards the double doors. “So I’ve just been in there with the doctors for his intake assessment. Now they have to talk to Jonas individually and then we’ll finalize the decision to keep him in overnight for an observational commitment.”

“Jesus.” Ulrich mutters. “The kid’s father just died. Of course, he’s going to be upset. That’s no good reason to drop him off at the insane asylum.”

“He’s more than upset! You weren’t there. You didn’t see him. He was practically catatonic. Just sitting up in that attic, staring at Michael’s body hanging from a rope. And before we left, Bartosz told me he was seeing things in the mirror. I mean…that’s not normal, right? If he’s hallucinating that could be a symptom of psychosis.”

Ulrich raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Did the doctors tell you that?”

“The doctors are very concerned. They think Jonas needs to stay with them a few days for short-term stabilization. Given what I’ve told them about his family history, they don’t want to take any chances. Genetics play a big role in mental health, you know.”

He falls silent, realizing he can’t really argue with that. There was always something a little off about Michael. Ulrich remembers how he was branded the weirdo from the day he started at their school. Katharina used to call him her stalker. He was always following her around the halls or staring at her across the yard, until Ulrich had warned the kid to back off. When Hannah had started hanging out with Michael, she had drifted away from their more popular crowd. As they got older, Katharina had admitted to feeling sorry for the strange Kahnwald boy. She had heard from Hannah that he’d been adopted after running away from an abusive home, something she could relate to only too well. Ulrich supposes all that childhood trauma must have caught up with the poor guy. Yes, that must have been why he ended it all. Not because he knew or suspected anything about Ulrich and his wife.

“Did…did Michael ever get treatment?” he asks. “Or therapy?”

Hannah shakes her head. “Ines would never bring him here. Especially not after one of the inmates broke loose and dragged Michael off to the caves.”

Ulrich blinks. “Oh shit, yeah…I’d forgotten about that.”

“Ines thought she could look after Michael at home. But he…he had real problems. He hid them well, but sometimes they would bubble up to the surface. I should’ve known he needed help.” Her face tenses. “I’m not going to make the same mistake with our son. I’ll apply to have him in residential care if he needs it. Peter says there’ll be a waiting list. I might not be able to get him a room right away, but if that’s what it takes then…”

“Listen to me.” He takes a step towards her, pressing a hand to her shoulder. “I don’t think this is something you should rush into. Putting your kid in an institution? Because he lost his father? Hannah, I was the same age as Jonas the summer that Mads went missing. And I had people thinking there was something wrong with me too. I had Regina’s drunk old grandpa thinking I was a Satanist because of the music I listened to. I had him accusing me of killing sheep. I had him locking me up for something I didn’t...”

Ulrich trails off, before his temper gets the better of him. It just seems so unfair. Jonas is a nicer kid than he’d been at sixteen. The sort of boy who he actually wanted dating his only daughter. A boy who he felt sure would never hurt Martha in a million years.

Hannah lowers her gaze, taking a shuddering breath.

“Ulrich, this isn’t your decision. He’s my child, not yours.”

He nods, releasing her arm and looking back to the tall brick walls of the facility.

“I’m just saying…if it were me, I would hate to be left in a place like this.”

Her head jerks up. “And what about me? What about what I need right now? Aren’t you even going to ask me how I’m doing a few hours after my husband killed himself? You know, the doctors thought I might benefit from having time to mourn. That I should focus on my own recovery first before I have to bring my son home and look after him too. Don’t I deserve that? Do you even care? Do I still mean nothing to you?”

Tears spring into Hannah’s eyes and she’s almost yelling at him now. Ulrich takes her by the shoulders again, his touch more soothing than stern. He keeps his eyes on hers, not daring to look around the car park to see if anyone else is watching. He can’t have Hannah causing a scene right now. Everyone knows each other in Winden. People talk.

“Of course, I care,” he insists. “What do you need?”

Her tears slide down her cheeks as she holds his stare.

“I…I can’t be alone tonight. Will you stay with me?”

He struggles to form an answer. He can’t quite believe what she's asking. Hannah wants him to come to the old Kahnwald house and sleep over? In the same bed she has shared with her husband for some twenty years? On the first night after he’s killed himself?

“I, I would, but…Katharina. What if she…we just had our anniversary.”

Hannah’s eyes harden. “I don’t know what I might do if I’m alone tonight.”

He shudders at her words and how her tone seems to be shifting from seduction to threat. Or maybe he’s just imagining it. Maybe Hannah is just a grieving widow after all and he’s the bastard for denying her own cry for help. Ulrich realizes he can’t deny Hannah anything right now. She’s spilling out over the edges and he needs to hold her together.

“Okay, okay…” He wraps his arms around her, presses a kiss to her brow and then whispers softly into her hair. “I’ll figure something out. I’ll say that I got called into work. I’ll be there.”

“Why are you here?” a voice says behind him.

Ulrich lets his arms fall to his sides as he and Hannah quickly separate. He turns to see a very pale Jonas walking towards them having just exited the ‘Adolescent Unit’ with Peter Doppler at his side, carrying a handful of paperwork. Jonas’s eyes dart back and forth between Ulrich and his mother. And even in his traumatized state, the boy seems to be connecting the dots. Ulrich can’t help thinking back to his run in with Jonas on the landing last night. How the kid had looked like a deer in headlights when Ulrich had caught him sneaking out of his daughter’s bedroom. He wonders if he’s wearing the same expression now.

“Mama, what is he doing here?” Jonas persists.

Ulrich clears his throat, trying to brush off the edge of suspicion in Jonas's tone. “I heard what happened. About your father, I’m so sorry. I just came running over here to see how your mother was doing, that’s all.”

He immediately realizes the _‘that’s all’_ was a mistake. It makes him sound like he’s making excuses for a crime Jonas has yet to accuse him of. But the reproach is already there in the kid’s eyes. Ulrich knows he should stop, but his mouth is still babbling on.

“I wanted to see how you were doing too. Martha is very worried. I told her I would pass along that…that she’s thinking of you. We’re all here for you. I mean, you two stayed over at our house last night. You’re practically part of the family.”

Jonas just stands there staring, his eyes pained but dry, like he has no tears left for this. Like if Jonas had figured out this thing between him and Hannah some other time, it might have been a devastating blow. But right now, it only amounts to them kicking him when he’s down.

“Um Hannah, we’re finished with Jonas’s preliminary evaluation,” says Peter, breaking the tension in the air, his eyes flitting nervously around their small circle. “The doctors have asked if you’ll come back inside now. There’s several documents requiring your…”

“Of course.” She wipes her eyes, then takes her son by the arm. “Jonas, come on. Let’s not keep the doctors waiting.”

Hannah doesn’t turn back to Ulrich, but as they walk away, he's still close enough to hear the words Jonas mutters to his mother.

“He’s not part of our family.”


	9. Claudia

_21\. June 1953, 1.50pm_

The cabin in the woods is just like Claudia remembers it.

The toy soldiers set out in battle formation on its table. The wooden box filled with dead birds up on the shelf. The key still hidden under the third flowerpot by the steps. Helge had shown her how to get into his secret shack when they were kids. He had mostly come here to play imaginary war games all by himself. But he had told Claudia she could visit his special place too if she wanted.

It’s taken over sixty years for her to take him up on his offer.

Inside its walls, Claudia sits by the bed where Jonas lies curled on his side. For the last hour, the boy has been twitchy on the mattress, a sweat beading on his brow. He’s close to waking now, though his mind still seems to be clinging to the refuge of sleep, wanting to stay in its oblivious darkness for a little longer. She knows that he must be exhausted. She knows that he’s travelled three times during the last week, his body yanked back and forth through the decades. It takes its toll. She also knows that Jonas was shot in the leg and hung by the neck just a few days ago. Fresh injuries that are still raw and struggling to heal. And that is to say nothing of the old emotional wounds he reopened last night.

She wishes Jonas didn’t have to wake up to all the tragedies that time has heaped on him, or the further suffering that she knows is still to come. Part of her thinks it would be a mercy to Jonas, not to mention every other soul caught in the knot, if she were to just take the cushion from behind her back and hold it down over the boy’s mouth and nose until the breath was smothered out of him.

She knows that she won’t do it. She knows that time wouldn’t allow it. She could use that form of euthanasia to free Regina from her suffering in this doomed world. But the loop isn’t done with Jonas Kahnwald yet. Not by a long shot.

The boy rolls on his back and the next moment, he jerks upright, sucking in a gasp, his eyelids flying open. Claudia doesn’t startle. She knows Jonas often wakes in a panic. She waits as he calms down and takes in his new surroundings.

“Where…where am I?” he asks, turning his blinking eyes to her.

She smiles patiently, not surprised he doesn’t realize where she has brought him. Last night Jonas had been crying all the way to the caves, the rain slowly easing around the same time as his tears. He hadn’t asked where they were going. He’d just walked behind her in a numb trance, following as she lit their way. Those tunnels were tough enough on her old knees, but it had taken even longer with a distraught teenager crawling slowly in her shadow. They had emerged on the other side to find it was dry and near dawn in the forest. Jonas was still in his mute despair as she had guided him to the cabin, sat him on the bed and made him swallow a couple of the anti-anxiety pills he was prescribed a year ago. The ones that help him sleep. She’d made sure to have some in her bag when she came for him.

“We’re in the Winden woods, in a cabin belonging to the Doppler family,” she tells him. “Bernd once used it as his hunting lodge before the polio weakened his joints. His young son Helge comes to play here sometimes. But he won’t be around today.”

Jonas frowns. “How do you know that?”

“It’s a Sunday. His mother never let him play in the woods on Sundays because she didn’t want him to get his church clothes dirty.” She nods to the clock on the bedside table. “And I will be visiting him at the house at 2pm so I can tutor him in math.”

Jonas glances at the clock and his frown deepens.

“My younger self,” she clarifies.

He turns his foreboding stare back to her.

“What year is it?” he asks.

“1953. It’s where the other tunnel leads.”

Jonas sighs, not even shocked at this stage. She’s relieved he isn’t complaining about this new era she has dropped him into. When they had come to the split in the passage, she had chosen this time period feeling it was the safest place for them to hideout. Regina has not been born yet, and neither have Jonas’s parents. There’s less temptation for either of them to go out and tamper with destiny. Until it becomes necessary of course.

Jonas is still just staring at her, blankly.

“Do you know who I am?” she asks.

His mouth sets in a grim line and he nods.

“I recognize your voice. You’re the woman from the tapes. You’re Claudia Tiedemann.” Jonas peels back his blankets and winces as he lowers his wounded leg over the side of the bed. “Why did you come for me? Who _are_ you to me?”

It takes her a moment to answer. How to explain who she is to Jonas? In the thirty or more years they spent together after the apocalypse she had been old enough to be his mother, but it had been too painful to see Jonas as her son. Now she is another generation older and he is the youngest that she’s ever seen him, the same age as her grandchild Bartosz, who she still has yet to meet. On the family trees she’s studied she has found that she’s thankfully not related to Jonas, other than that they share a half-sister, Silja, born to her father and his mother about two years from now. But she isn’t part of Jonas’s line, tied up in his knot.

“A fellow traveller,” she replies at last.

He screws up his face and glares. “Right. And…and is that what I am now? A traveller? A wanderer in the darkness who can never go home?” He hugs his stomach, his eyes filling with tears again. “That…that was something my Papa said. In his suicide note.” He shakes his head. “That fucking note that I made him write.”

Claudia can see the memory of last night crashing over him like a wave. He’s trembling again, tears trailing his cheeks, his throat constricting.

She reaches out and clasps him by the arms.

“I know how you feel. How badly you wanted to stop it.”

“No, you don’t know how this feels! You can’t…”

“I brought about my father’s death too.”

That is enough to silence him. Jonas stares at her, too stunned by her confession to rage anymore. She leans forward in her chair, holding his gaze. Claudia finds most people can’t stand to look at her for very long. They get unnerved by her mismatched eyes and have to turn away. But Jonas has never been one of those people.

“The first time I travelled, I arrived in your time. I went to the library and searched the local history archives, researching what had happened in the three decades I had missed. That’s when I learned my father had died alone in his apartment in the same year that I’d left.” She swallows. “So I went back, thinking I could prevent it. I asked my father to move in with me and my daughter, something I should’ve done years ago. I thought we could look after him, stop the thing that killed him. Only it turned out…it was me.”

Even now, even after all these years, Claudia can’t keep the strain out of her voice or a few tears from slipping over her cheeks as she speaks of this. And Jonas is listening very intently now, his face still anguished but no longer tensed with fury.

“What happened?” he asks. “What did you…?”

“We got into an argument. My father…he’d found out about time travel. He was a police inspector. He knew how to piece the clues together. He was going to order a search of the caves. I knew I couldn’t let that happen. So I tried to grab the phone from him. We struggled. He fell and hit his head. There…there was so much blood.” She takes a breath, trying to steady her voice. “It was an accident. A mistake. But then I realized…that’s how it must always have happened. I was always meant to bring about his death. Even if I was trying to prevent it. Even if he didn’t deserve it. My father was a good man. Too good for this world.”

She feels Jonas’s forearms shuddering beneath her hands.

“My Papa too,” he says. “He was a better man than I’ll ever be.”

She tips her head at him. “I don’t know about that, Jonas.”

“Don’t you? How can you say that? You’ve _seen_ the man I’ll be!”

His face darkens as he finally turns away from her. His hands reach up to cup around his throat, covering the red rope burn on his neck. The same scar that Adam still carries to this day, along with all the other gruesome marks his travels have left on him, most of them self-inflicted. And suddenly Claudia finds herself thinking of Regina and the old scars she found on her daughter’s wrists. She had first seen them when they were sheltering in the old police station after the apocalypse, pulling back her sleeve to set up a drip feed. Claudia had been horrified, demanding to know when Regina had cut herself.

“Back when I was a kid,” she had answered.

Claudia had sighed and asked, “After I went missing?”

But Regina had shaken her head. “Before.”

The Jonas she is looking at now is around the same age as Regina was when Claudia first abandoned her. And he’s already collecting scars. Already showing signs of not taking care of himself and seeming prone to self-harm. If nothing changes, then a few years from now, that scar on his throat will deepen. Jonas will try hanging himself in the same attic, from the same rafters where he found his father dangling. Noah reported to Claudia afterwards that he’d cut Jonas down and told him that he had no hope of escaping the knot that way, not realizing what being forced to live without hope would do to the desperate young man over time.

“It should’ve been my father who was saved,” Jonas says. “I’m the one who’s wrong. I’m the darkness. I’m the one who’ll grow up to be a monster.”

Claudia says nothing, but Jonas is not alone in this feeling either. There were many who would say she has become monstrous over time too. Those who call her the White Devil. She shivers, remembering how the name had sounded as her father whispered it with his dying breaths. She knows she’s done enough to earn it. Claudia has killed herself too. Only she was staring herself in the eyes when she pulled the trigger.

“Please, I just...I don’t want to become a monster,” Jonas pleads to her. “I’d rather never have existed than be someone who…” He falls silent a moment, his face paling. “My father. He said I was the one who led Mikkel into the caves. That he…he trusted me. He felt safe because I was with him. And then what? I left him there?! I stranded him in the past?”

Jonas gets to his feet, hissing at the pain in his leg, as he paces the cabin floor.

“No, I won’t do it! I’ll never do that to him! He was just a little kid.”

Claudia sits back in her chair. “But you will to it, Jonas. In a way, you’ve already done it. You must have. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here talking to me now. There’s nothing that you can do to make things better if you don’t first ensure your own birth.”

“But…but how am I supposed to live with myself? I don’t care what my big part is in all of this! I just can’t do this sick shit anymore!”

“You have to. There’s so much depending on you.”

“What?! What is it you’ve dragged me to the fifties to do?”

Jonas stands over her, searching her face for answers.

“Here? Here we’ll do nothing. This is just where we wait.”

His face creases with confusion. “Wait for what?”

“It is now just over a year until the apocalypse in your time. Before that date, we will visit 2019 only once, on that night in November, so that you can send your father where he needs to go. The rest of those twelve months, I will spend teaching you everything I have learnt about time travel. I’ll train and prepare you for what is to come…” She rises to her feet and comes to stand before him. “We’re going to change things this cycle, Jonas. The big things will have to stay the same, but small alterations can still change the overall equation. We can change a grain of sand and with it the entire world.”

His eyes widen, a spark returning to them, as he senses the possibilities.

“We can really change things?” he asks. “You’re sure?”

She nods. “Yes. And that’s what gave me the strength to carry on after my father’s death. Someone came to me and said that it wouldn’t have to happen that way next time.”

He frowns. “Who said that?”

“You, Jonas. That was the first night I met you. It was you who gave me hope again, who made me believe my father could still be saved. I always knew that I would do the same for you one day. So that you can keep going. So that you can play your part.”

She still remembers the night he opened her door with the key she has yet to give him. That pale scrawny boy with dirt on his face and wells of sadness in his eyes. This is her Jonas. The first Jonas she knew and still the one she cares for most. She’s missed him.

“So, you’re saying next time…my father can be saved?”

She swallows. “Yes. He can still be saved.”

Claudia knows she needs to give Jonas hope, even if its false hope. This boy has the biggest heart. It will take decades of pain and despair to eat the heart out of him. In a way Claudia doesn’t blame him for his dark turn. If she didn’t know there was a way for Regina to live, then she would lose hope too. But she also knows that Jonas without hope will become the most dangerous threat to two worlds. So when she lies to him, it is something akin to trying to diffuse a bomb. Or at least delay its inevitable explosion.

Jonas takes a step towards her, his eyebrows hitching.

“And…and Martha. After the apocalypse…I saw her grave and...”

“You can save her too. You’ll save the world with her.”

His eyes sparkle and his lips twitch like they want to smile. Claudia’s heart aches at the hint of that smile. She hates herself for doing this to him, even if she knows this is how it has to be. She has much to teach Jonas in this coming year, but she has even more that she must hide from him. So she’ll tell him over and over that he can save Mikkel, save Martha, even while knowing the people Jonas loves most, along with Jonas himself, are too tightly bound up in the knot. All of them part of that poisoned family line. Jonas never actually asks if there is a way to save his own life. He’s already accepted himself as a glitch in the matrix, an anomaly needing to be erased, wrong in this world and every other.

“Next time,” Jonas whispers. “I’ll make it right next time.”

As he says these words, Claudia finds she can’t look him in the eyes any longer. She just shoves her hands into her pockets and turns her gaze to the window, to the shafts of sunlight cutting through the glass. Jonas follows her stare. Then he moves to the door, throwing it open.

“Is that…is that the bunker out there?” he asks.

He doesn’t wait for her answer. He’s already limping over the grass, heading for the hatch door that Helge has left open since the last time he played there. Claudia follows him down the steps and into its underground chamber, where she finds Jonas pawing at the wall, as if feeling for that dimensional tear that travellers like him are known to fall through.

“I lived here,” he murmurs. “When I got stuck in the future. This is where I found all those tapes you made after you survived the apocalypse. Did you live here too?”

She nods. “Yes, this was my home. For a time.”

Claudia doesn’t tell Jonas how much time. She doesn’t tell him that this bunker will be the home the two of them share for so many years in that grey ruined world. That while he has lost his first family, Jonas’s future self gained other families over the course of his long life. The first of those being the little unit that he formed with Claudia, Noah and Elizabeth after the apocalypse, the four of them locked together in the secret of the God Particle and how they might harness its power. Then later in life, Jonas will travel back to the old Tannhaus factory where he’ll become a father of sorts to Bartosz, Magnus and Franziska, the teenagers who used to be his old school friends. He’ll rescue them from the disaster and do his best to guide them. They’ll become the founding members of his flock in a much larger and more lavish bunker than this one. The first followers of Sic Mundus.

Three families stretched over three centuries. And if Claudia fails to change things, then Jonas will become the man who will seek to destroy them all – to achieve his paradise of oblivion, his escape into the endless dark. Claudia has tried very hard never to hate Jonas Kahnwald, even knowing the monstrous things he’ll be capable of when the cycle has spat him out at the other end of its loop. She always tries to remember that before Jonas became the worst tyrant in this war against time, he was time’s greatest victim.

She’s tried not to love Jonas either, and that’s always been the tougher wall to build around her heart. Love has always scared Claudia. So much so that she never said the word to Regina out loud, even though her love for her daughter is all that has kept her going. But she knows Regina can be saved, just as she knows that Jonas will never be.

“So what now?” he asks, turning away from the bunker wall. “What’s next?”

His voice is flat and hollow. He speaks as one who’s already conditioned to having no free will, who’s come to expect that other people will just come and take control of any decision he tries to make, so he might as well submit. Claudia hesitates to answer.

“Are you going to start training me?” Jonas prompts her. “Teaching me what you know?”

She lets out a sigh. She thinks Jonas still needs to rest. That he should mourn his father on the anniversary of his death, the first tragedy of his life that the boy has just been forced to relive. If Claudia were his mother, she might even suggest she and Jonas take the day off. That they do something nice together. She once made this suggestion to Regina, only to realize she had asked her too late. That she’d missed her chance. She thinks she’s lost it with him too.

“What do you want to do, Jonas?” Claudia asks him all the same. “If none of this were happening, then what would you want to do with the life that’s ahead of you?”

He snorts a bitter laugh, shaking his head at her.

“You mean…what do I want to be when I grow up?”

She smiles faintly and shrugs. “If you like.”

“Why ask me that? What does it even matter now?”

“It matters. It says a great deal about the person you’ll be.” She looks at the four stone walls surrounding them. “You know, the man who owns this bunker once gave me some very good advice. He said I needed to take the things I wanted from life, that nothing would just happen for me. And I decided back then, when I was still just a young girl, that I wanted to grow up to become the head of the Winden Nuclear Power Plant. I made it my goal before the station was even built, in a time when nobody could imagine a woman being in charge. I wanted it for myself because I knew it would be the most important job in town. And I suppose that’s what I’ve always wanted to be. The most important player in the game.”

Claudia’s heart sinks, thinking of how after all her hard-won success, that power plant went on to destroy two worlds. How it might also be responsible for the history of cancer in the Tiedemann family. She hopes there’ll be no plant in the origin world, the world where Regina can still live. She wishes more than anything she could see this better Winden but she knows that she never will. If all goes to plan, then the woman she has been and her lifelong work untying this knot, will all cease to exist. There’ll be another Claudia who lives on in the restored timeline, but it won’t be her. And she just hopes her other self will be a better mother, a better daughter, a better person than she ever was.

Jonas shuffles over to the metal framed bed, sitting down on its bare mattress. His head is bowed, his brows knitted in thought. When he raises his eyes to her again, his expression is so innocent. He finally looks as young as his current years. Younger even.

“When I was little, I thought…I’d like to be a fireman. Only I was scared about getting burned. My father and me were making pancakes this one time and I scolded my hand on the hot oil after he dropped the pan on the floor. It really hurt.”

Jonas shudders, squeezing his eyes closed, no doubt thinking over every scar he saw on his future face. Every burn Adam suffered after too much travel through the fires of time. She hopes more than anything that this Jonas, this cycle, will not have to suffer the same.

Claudia crosses the bunker and comes to sit by his side.

“I think you would make a good fireman, Jonas.”

He blinks his eyes open and sighs. “This is stupid.”

“It’s not. It’s who you are. You want to save people.” She takes his hand, her wrinkled fingers pressing around his smooth white knuckles. “And you will.”

Jonas blushes, as if embarrassed that he was ever a small child with dreams. But when he turns to meet her stare again, Claudia can see he’s desperate to believe her. And she hopes this time she’s telling Jonas the truth. She knows she cannot spare him and he in turn cannot save those he loves most. But if all goes to plan, Jonas will save lives.

If all goes to plan, he will use his life to save an entire world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this fic has been a great way to explore some of the characters of this incredible show. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with his fic through all nine chapters, thanks especially those of you who left me such lovely insightful comments. I've been delighted to find a fandom with such an intelligent readership.


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